1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-forming job managing apparatus for managing an image-forming job issued from at least one terminal to an image-forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image-forming system is now being proposed, in which a plurality of servers for controlling printers with an image-forming function and a plurality of client terminals, such as personal computers, are connected to a LAN (Local Area Network).
In the image-forming system, when a user operates their client terminal to issue an instruction to print out a document, they designate a destination printer. At this time, an image-forming job is issued from the client computer to the server of the printer designated as a destination. The image-forming job includes, as well as data to be actually printed, information such as a document name, a sheet size, a print range, the number of copies and a magnification, etc.
Each server registers, in a queue, image-forming jobs issued from client terminals and manages them. Each server controls a printer in its charge on the basis of the image-forming jobs registered in the queue, thereby causing each printer to execute an image-forming process.
In this image-forming system, a list of image-forming jobs registered in the queue in a server can be displayed on the display of a client terminal, or information, such as the number of copies, included in an image-forming-job can be changed using a client terminal.
However, in the image-forming system, image-forming jobs registered in the queue in a server cannot be transferred to another server. Accordingly, if, for example, a user comes to be aware of their erroneous designation of a printer after they issue an instruction to print out a document, they must change the designated printer in a complicated procedure as described below.
First, the user accesses the server of the printer erroneously designated from their client terminal, thereby displaying a list of image-forming jobs on the display of the client terminal. After that, the user selects the image-forming job addressed to the wrong destination, and instructs the server to stop the job. As a result, the accessed server stops the image-forming job.
Subsequently, the user calls for, to the client terminal, the document included in the image-forming job addressed to the wrong destination. Then, the user again instructs the terminal to print out the document. At this time, the user designates a correct printer as a destination. As a result, an image-forming job is issued to the server of the printer designated as the destination, whereby the printer executes a document copying process on the basis of the image-forming job.
In the light of the above, there is a need for providing an image-forming job managing apparatus for managing an image-forming job issued from at least one terminal to an image-forming apparatus, which can transfer, by a simple procedure, an image-forming job to another image-forming job managing apparatus on a network.